Syndication As a Product
For syndication to be a successful business model, Bell says, content owners need three guarantees: the ability to manage where and how content is seen or heard; to meter its reach and availability; and (you guessed it) to monetize its eventual output.
With these principles at its core, Loudeye publicly released the commercial version of its Media Syndicator product last fall. In a well-composed press kit, Loudeye articulated how Media Syndicator offers kitchen-sink solutions for content owners in syndication --providing everything from encoding and hosting services, to digital rights management and the creation of customized business rules.
Media Syndicator (which goes for a hefty $125,000 for a full-service installment, not including a 12 percent transaction fee and monthly services charges of up to $7500 for hosting and storage) has had three beta customers since June: Video Networks Inc. (VNI), Eveo and CinemaNow.
Based in Roswell (Georgia, not New Mexico), Video Networks uses Media Syndicator as a tool incorporated into its Media Commerce Network. In principle, the product would be used in VNI's video management system to distribute digitized video clips to multiple affiliates. But VNI has thus far been unable to make Media Syndicator's services fit the company's specific needs.
"Basically, economics play into every decision we make [for syndication]. The model is similar to television, just in Internet time frames."
According to Jamie Wedel, product manager with VNI, while a well-intentioned and potentially viable product; Media Syndicator is not quite there yet. "On paper, it looks great, but Loudeye originally built the Media Syndicator as a service, and later marketed it as a product," says Wedel. "The release was a time-to-market decision."
Loudeye's Bell wouldn't disagree. "Our 2.0 and 3.0 [versions] will address some of the issues that our clients have brought up." Bell expects Loudeye to release the 2.0 version of Media Syndicator sometime in the middle of next year.
Eveo, a destination and showcase site for aspiring filmmakers and animators, hasn't fully implemented Loudeye's product into its own offerings, either. According to Olivier Zitoun, co-founder, president and chief executive officer, this is because Eveo is satisfied as a portal play, and isn't focused on syndication as a business model. In fact, Zitoun admits, "I wouldn't build a company on syndication."
But one company that has had modest success with syndication is Mondo Media. The 12-year-old company began its syndication strategy in July 1998, and now has 30 distribution partners, syndicating 12 weekly, animated series, including Thugs on Film and Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World, to such powerhouse destination sites as Netscape Netcenter, NBCi, and Entertaindom.
"Our business model looks more like television," says Douglas Kay, president of Mondo Media. "Revenue from streaming media syndication is generated through licensing fees with our affiliates and major partners." Mondo Media also recently signed a deal with the BBC to syndicate the popular The God and Devil Show -- a talk show spoof, a la Regis and Kathie Lee, that features prominent celebrities -- for a series on television.
But Mondo Media doesn't use aggregators like ScreamingMedia or iSyndicate in distributing its content, choosing instead to work directly with affiliate partners. "We are a syndicator, so really, they're competitors," says Kay, of content syndication companies. Mondo Media has set up in-house syndication technology for its affiliates and, at the moment, isn't in need of products such as Media Syndicator.
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